E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
2CC BREAKFAST WITH STEPHEN CENATIEMPO
TUESDAY, 18 OCTOBER 2022

SUBJECTS: Domestic Violence, Paid Parental Leave, deliberative democracy, The Canberra Forum

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO, HOST: Time to look at federal politics from a local level with the federal Member for Canberra, Alicia Payne. Good morning, Alicia.

ALICIA PAYNE MP, MEMBER FOR CANBERRA: Good morning, Stephen.

CENATIEMPO: Lots happening at the moment and some good ideas. But I wonder if the practices is really, and I want to start when we're going to talk more in detail about this a bit later on, the national plan to end violence against women and children. A noble aim, but is it something we can really achieve?

PAYNE: It is a very ambitious same that we've said that we want to end violence against women and children within just one generation. But I think if you aren't ambitious with those targets, what's the point? It's not acceptable to say that any level of violence is acceptable in the community. This is a plan that will work, it's been brought together with states and territories. And it's the first time that the plan has also focused on the recovery and the importance of engaging men and boys. And it looks at priority areas for action across the whole continuum from prevention, early intervention, response, recovery and healing. It's a really important piece of work and I think the fact that we've done this so early in our government, working with some states and territories, shows how serious we are about this.

CENATIEMPO: I just, one of the concerns I have, and I've heard many domestic, domestic violence activists say this too, is that we've got to stop referring to it as domestic violence or violence against women and children. It's just violence. And it doesn't matter what kind of violence, we need to stamp it out. But again, even in that broader sense, I wonder if, you know, human nature is ever going to allow us to get to that zero point.

PAYNE: Yeah, I think that's partly true, there will always be some violence. But I think the statistics show that we have a really deep seated cultural problem in Australian society with this. And you're right, it is violence against anyone that we want to prevent. But clearly, at the moment, one woman dies on average every 10 days at the hands of a former or current partner. And that statistic is just too high, as are those around how many people have experienced violence. So one in three women have experienced physical violence since the age of 15, and one in five has experienced sexual violence. And I think that that really shows there's something else going on here that we need to really get in early to try to address

CENATIEMPO: I want to talk about this paid parental leave announcement that the Prime Minister made at the New South Wales Labor Conference. It's being extended to half a year or 26 weeks, gradually over the next few years. Who pays for this?

PAYNE: Well, the federal government pays for this. This is a really exciting announcement, Labor introduced our first government paid parental leave scheme in 2011. It is closely based on recommendations from the Productivity Commission. And the recommendation was always that it should be 26 weeks, but at the time, that wasn't able to be afforded. But I think it's always been an aspiration, that we extend it to that. So this is really good news. And this will actually be looked at by the Women's Economic Equality Taskforce, which is a group chaired by Sam Mostyn, and brings together a range of experts on these issues. We're going to look at also modernising the scheme as we do it. So it may include things like what's called a use it or lose it provision, which means that some of the additional leave or some of the leave overall, may be that the dad or partner has to take that leave, because I've seen in other countries, this is really instrumental in ensuring that the parenting is more shared and giving dads that opportunity to take more paid leave to be with new babies.

CENATIEMPO: Now, this to me, sounds great. I don't know what it means. But I'm hoping you can explain it to me, your deliberative democracy project?

PAYNE: Yes. So I'm running a project. It's called the Canberra Forum, which is going to give Canberrans a special opportunity to be more closely involved with me in guiding my representation in the parliament. So deliberative democracy is all about using processes that actually give people a chance to hear information and consider an issue in-depth and citizens come up with recommendations. So it is a big process and people should watch their letterbox this week, there'll be a survey in there. The first step is that I'm going to survey all Canberrans about what issues are most important to them. And you also might get an invitation. Now this is randomly selected 8000 households will receive that. And of that, the people who respond that they want to be involved, we'll choose around 40. And that this is all being done by an independent group called the Sortition Foundation, who will choose a group that as best represents the population of Canberra across, age, gender and diversity, and also voting intention. So we don't just want people that vote Labor, I want the full range. So the idea of this is that I will get to hear views from people that I don't always get to hear. And this has been run by a group called Democracy Co, who are experts at this. And it's an Australian first, I'm the first MP to do this, a long standing and ongoing deliberative panel. And they want to develop a handbook from this for other MPs to use. So it's a really exciting project. I'm sorry, it's hard to explain it in a short time.

CENATIEMPO: Yeah, no that's fine. It's just, I like the sound of, the word deliberative democracy, the term deliberative democracy I found fascinating. So allow me to play devil's advocate for a moment, though, what if the forum comes up with something that is contrary to a Labor Party policy?

PAYNE: Well, I have made a commitment that I will. So the group will come up with written recommendations and I've agreed to publish that unchanged on my website, to write to relevant ministers with the findings of the group, and also to advocate on it within our caucus and to guide my advocacy. So it's not promising that we will 100% do it. But I think that is a really important. You know, I can't commit to change Labor policy, but I want to commit to representing my constituents fully and the findings of this group will be published on my website, and I will send them to the relevant ministers for whatever topic it is.

CENATIEMPO: Well, I was only saying to somebody yesterday that you and I might not agree on policy positions and ideologically, but you are a good local member, and I'll give you a credit for that. So is this gonna be a physical forum, or will it be online? How will it actually on the mechanics of it work?

PAYNE: So we'll go over a period of six months, and we'll have several face-to-face meetings in that time, and they'll be on Saturday afternoon. And as well, there will be some online meetings, which will be on a weekday evening. So it's a challenge to make it a time that most people can get to and obviously, there's no time that everyone can get to unfortunately, just try to be mindful of those things.

CENATIEMPO: I think it's a terrific idea. All right. Well, I look forward to following it with interest as it develops. Alicia, good to talk to you. We'll catch up again soon.

PAYNE: Thanks very much, Stephen.

CENATIEMPO: Alicia Payne is the federal Member for Canberra. I like the sound of that, deliberative democracy, The Canberra Forum. So an opportunity for, it'll be for a small cross section of the community but an opportunity for the community to actually have a say. Unusual in our modern political world isn't it.